Sustainable Cooking – What Is It and How Can We Get Involved?

Sustainable cooking is all about our food choices and how they affect local sustainability, health and the environment. Over 7.4 million tonnes of food goes to landfill every year, so it’s important that we start thinking about our relationship with food more.

The UN has put in place the Sustainable Development Goals Fund (SGDF), but what does it do? Its main aim is to bring together UN agencies, national governments, academia, civil society and business to address the challenges of poverty, promote the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and achieve Sustainable Development Goals.

There are small changes that we can make at home towards sustainable cooking, that will have a wider impact over the long-term. These include:

Turn down the heat: do you really need to have the hob up that high? Or do you have to pre-heat the oven? The answer to both is probably not! Try turning the gas or electricity down a notch, if you’re boiling in a pan, pop a lid on, this is both efficient for energy and your purse!

Reduce your liquid: Try not to overfill your pans. Tempting as it can be to just fill them up and let them bubble away, try measuring out how much liquid you will need or start small and add to it.

Waste not, want not: Check your fridge regularly to see what food you have, what’s going off soon, what can be frozen, what veg is on the turn that can be made into a quick side dish? My personal favourite is ratatouille, it’s rare I keep to an exact recipe, I just follow the staple ingredients and add what I need to use from the fridge.

Choose sustainable food: By this we mean buy local, seasonal and environmentally friendly food. For example, try local farmer’s markets, choose products with a Fairtrade stamp, select fish that has been sustainably farmed.

Take the bull by the horns: And reduce how much meat and dairy you eat! By eating less beef and consuming less dairy products you can reduce health risks and greenhouse gases. Choose more fresh fruit, vegetables, grains and pulses instead, here are some recipe ideas.

Finally, one of the ways the SDGF is encouraging people to get involved is via #recipe4change – a global contest for sustainable cooking. Follow this link to take part in the #recipe4change sustainable cooking contest – and share any recipes with us on the Artists Project Earth Facebook Page!